Capturing problems

[dbrunton]

I'm trying to convert some old VHS tapes to DVD.

I'm experimenting with the Titanic tape at the moment. It's the only one available to me at this period of time. I'm connecting to an old National Panasonic NV-H65 (about late 80s model) player through a composite connection to the video card. Video only and no sound. I need another cable to connect to the S-video connector on the video card for the sound but that's a shopping trip in the future.

I've tried three different apps to get the tape down to the hard disk in AVI format. WinAVI, VirtualDub and VirtualVCR. They can all see the film in preview mode but only in chunks. I'll get a chunk, it'll play a second or two and then go into a loop. Five or so seconds or more and then another chunk and the same pattern repeats.

VirtualDub says only 10% CPU utilization and only 1 or 2 frames dropped. If I save to disk and play back it is the same as the preview. Now I believe that it is getting all of the tape because in preview mode when it is looping I can see at the top of the preview screen a small strip which looks like the bottom of the missing frames.

So my question is what is going on and how do I fix?

[redwudz]

S-video connections don't carry audio. Stereo audio is usually connected to the line-in of the audio card or motherboard audio connection.

Preview mode with some cards takes a lot of processing power and can cause capture problems or dropped frames. Try disabling it and you may get a better capture.

With a VHS capture, you will almost always see a 'noise' strip as that is the head switching noise from the VCR. But with TV playback that is hidden by the TVs overscan feature. Not a problem most times.

And welcome to our forums.

[dbrunton]

>> S-video connections don't carry audio.

So much for my assumptions that S-video carried sound as well. That makes my cable buying easier.

>> Try disabling it and you may get a better capture.

Tried that. No joy.

>> always see a 'noise' strip

This isn't a noise strip. I'm seeing the bottom of missing frames. I can see what these frames are actually doing (only the bottom mind you).

>> And welcome to our forums.

Thanks. Nice place and the tutorials are very very helpful.

[dbrunton]

Found another tape which was a homemade VHS-C and trying that has no problems.

Could well be a form of copy protection. I'm going to assume Macrovision for the moment.

That's OK. That should not affect the tapes I'm converting. More experimentation required but I can now test the capture and converting.

[thecoalman]

That's OK. That should not affect the tapes I'm converting.

Depends on the card and the condition of the tapes.

http://www.nepadigital.com/mv/

[dbrunton]

Yep. I've seen that.

The tapes I intend doing are either:
stuff shot on Digital 8 and then transferred to VHS
stuff shot on Super 8 and then transferred to VHS
some television stuff on VHS

All that shouldn't have Macrovision on it. Just want to get these tapes to a better media.

[thecoalman]

The tapes I intend doing are either:
stuff shot on Digital 8 and then transferred to VHS
stuff shot on Super 8 and then transferred to VHS

f you have access to the originals you're better off using them especially with the digital 8. That's a bit for bit transfer from tape to the computer e.g indetical copy of what's on the tape. There is no loss at all.

All that shouldn't have Macrovision on it.

They won't have MV, if you read the article I linked to what happens is some capture cards interprets common errors as MV. Just giving you a heads up if you encounter the same issue with home tapes.

[dbrunton]

>> Just giving you a heads up if you encounter the same issue with home tapes.

Thanks. I hope there won't be problems. The small VHS-C I played seemed OK but we'll see what happens.

[photoimely]

I was having trouble capturing my HDV footage to my Vista. It didnt want to work. Then I downloaded HDVSplit from this Forum. It was working well for about 18 minutes, then an unexpectly stopped. The message said "no information from the camera" Never worked since.

Any Help Would Be Appreciated!

[minidv2dvd]

welcome newbie. not a good start. what you are doing is called thread hijacking. your post is not related to the original poster's problem at all. maybe one of the mods will help you out this time and move your post. next time start your own thread for a new problem after having searched the forum posts for a solution.

anyway start with a new firewire cable and see if that helps. otherwise it could be either the cam or computer firewire port has died.